Francis Campbell

It’s summertime and the living is easy. Regular schedules are abandoned as day trips, vacations and relaxation provide respite from the everyday humdrum. In our churches, the pews that appeared to be sparsely occupied in fall, winter and spring seem to be even more vacated in the summer heat. Open the doors and where’s the people, we might ask.

The Vatican last week released the Pope’s encyclical on the environment and while many pundits suggested the Catholic Church and its spiritual leader should butt out of ecological politics and economics, the Pope’s hard-hitting missive about our endangered planet got a relatively positive review.

The Nova Scotia weather turns from rain to sunshine and even to a short flurry of hail on a lazy late-May afternoon. The dreary weather lends itself perfectly to an exchange of texts with a good friend.

My God, my God, why have we forsaken thee. Society is hell-bent on downplaying the existence of God, ignoring Him, pushing Him to the sidelines, pretending that He just isn’t real.

The latest volley in the deity war was fired broadside by the Supreme Court of Canada. In mid-April, the country’s highest court ruled unanimously that the practice of Saguenay, Que., city councillors of crossing themselves and spending 20 full seconds in Catholic prayer before conducting official municipal business was out of bounds.

After a practically snow-free December and January, the Maritime provinces were relentlessly buffeted by snowfall after snowfall during February and March. Two and sometimes three storms in a week left Nova Scotians scratching their heads and cussing their fortunes.

An American survey from more than a year ago showed that 45 per cent of people usually make New Year’s resolutions and another 38 per cent never make them. But only eight per cent of people are successful in achieving their resolutions. Self-improvement and weight-related resolutions are the most popular, followed by money-related and relationship-related vows.

They came by the thousands. Young and old, men and women, Francophone and English, the able-bodied and the infirm, they came despite the driving, biting snow and blustery wind to a church in Montreal in mid-December to bid farewell to hockey legend Jean Beliveau.